Hatchtech awarded $2.4m grant

Unlisted Melbourne biotech Hatchtech has been awarded a AUD$2.4 million AusIndustry Commercial Ready grant to support its head lice treatment R&D program.

Hatchtech was spun out from the University of Melbourne in 2001 to commercialise a newly discovered class of ovicides that kill louse and insect eggs at very low, safe concentrations.

Originally developed by Centre for Animal Biotechnology's Dr Vern Bowles, the technology may also have applications in areas such as agriculture for the control of insect pests.

One in five primary school children in Australia is affected by head lice, and more than 12 million children in the USA. Current head lice treatments have little effect on the eggs and this poor ovicidal activity is believed to be a major reason for their low efficacy.

Hatchtech COO Dr Lewis Schulz said that the company expects to be in clinical trials within 12-18 months.

"In phase II clinical trials and onwards we will look at using the treatment in combination with current therapies versus those therapies alone," said Schulz. "The aim would be to kill off the eggs and therefore make the treatment much more efficacious. As well as potentially making it a single use only, because current compounds have to be used 7-10 days apart so that they kill off the lice from eggs which were not killed in the first treatment."

Once a retail product is available, Schulz said, Hatchtech's treatment would be of a similar cost to products currently on the shelf.

The Commonwealth government grant is in addition to $2.9 million raised earlier this year from the investment syndicate of Biocomm Services, GBS Venture Partners, Uniseed, Westscheme and the Queensland Biocapital Fund. Melbourne Ventures, the commercialisation arm of the University of Melbourne, was also previously awarded VicStart program funding by the Victorian government to support management of Hatchtech and other start-up companies.